Melchior made a sign to me, pointing to the five guineas
and the reticule; and I contrived to slip them into
her reticule, while she sobbed in her handkerchief.

“Enough, madam; you must go, for others require
my aid.”

The poor woman rose, and offered the ring.

“Nay, nay, I want not thy money; I take from
the rich, that I may distribute to the poor—­but
not from the widow in affliction. Open thy bag.”
The widow took up her bag, and opened it. Melchior
dropped in the ring, taking his wand from the table,
waved it, and touched the bag. “As thou
art honest, so may thy present wants be relieved.
Seek, and thou shalt find.”

The widow left the room with tears of gratitude; and
I must say, that I was affected with the same.
When she had gone, I observed to Melchior, that up
to the present he had toiled for nothing.

“Very true, Japhet; but depend upon it, if I
assisted that poor woman from no other feelings than
interested motives, I did well; but I tell thee candidly,
I did it from compassion. We are odd mixtures
of good and evil. I wage war with fools and knaves,
but not with all the world. I gave that money
freely—­she required it; and it may be put
as a set-off against my usual system of fraud, or
it may not—­at all events, I pleased myself.”

“But you told her that her son was alive.”

“Very true, and he may be dead; but is it not
well to comfort her—­even for a short time,
to relieve that suspense which is worse than the actual
knowledge of his death? Sufficient for the day
is the evil thereof.”

It would almost have appeared that this good action
of Melchior met with its reward, for the astonishment
of the widow at finding the gold in her reticule—­her
narrative of what passed, and her assertion (which
she firmly believed to be true), that she had never
left her reticule out of her hand, and that Melchior
had only touched it with his wand, raised his reputation
to that degree, that nothing else was talked about
throughout the town, and, to crown all, the next day’s
post brought her a letter and remittances from her
son; and the grateful woman returned, and laid ten
guineas on the black cloth, showering a thousand blessings
upon Melchior, and almost worshipped him as a supernatural
being. This was a most fortunate occurrence,
and as Melchior prophesied, the harvest did now commence.
In four days we had received upwards of L200, and we
then thought it time that we should depart. The
letters arrived, which were expected, and when we
set off in a chaise and four, the crowd to see us
was so great, that it was with difficulty we could
pass through it.